EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Julia Ratten and her brother Jack, who is 7, won’t be going back to their local school this month. After the school district in Beaverton, Oregon, announced its latest round of budget cuts, teacher lay-offs and increases in class sizes, Jack and Julia’s parents decided to enrol them in the state’s full-time online school, Oregon Connections Academy.

“I thought it was weird to send your kids to online school,” says their mother, Kristin. But facing class sizes of more than 30, she says she and her husband Jason saw little to lose in trying something different. …